


caught as a bird once free

by green_piggy



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: ANYWAY the usual hope you enjoy!, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Blood and Gore, Depression, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Episode Ignis Verse 2, Episode Prompto reimagining, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, LMAO, Mild Suicidal Ideation, OKAY I THINK THAT'S EVERYTHING, PLEASE READ ALL CONTENT TAGS, Physical Abuse, Post-Episode Ignis Verse 2, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence, also this is 13k so like if you read it all, and slightly afraid, and the largest one was WHAT HAPPENS TO PROMPTO'S DEVELOPMENT, and the remaining 10 is because the chocobros all need therapy, bam - Freeform, basically verse 2 left me with a Lot of questions, but eos apparently doesnt have therapists, colour me impressed, idk what else to say im used to rambling in tags but rn im just, nothing apparently, peace out, so this happened, tbh 90 percent of those tags is Ardyn Being Ardyn, wait i forgot one content tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 15:13:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16477937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_piggy/pseuds/green_piggy
Summary: "Prompto’s all alone in an entire facility dedicated to creating MTs - one that’s been overrun with daemons, may I add.” He smiled. “He’s a strong boy, truly, but I think even the Shield would struggle by himself, much less aninnocent civilianwho’s had very little combat training. Especially weaponless, unlike you two. Aren’t I a gracious host!” Ardyn caught his hat between his fingers, voice dropping. “I wonderjusthow long he can survive.”--Gladio and Ignis tear through Zegnautus Keep after Prompto is taken by Ardyn. However, he may not be the one they have to worry about the most.[A re-imagining of Episode Prompto within the context of Episode Ignis Verse 2's ending.]





	caught as a bird once free

**Author's Note:**

> **PLEASE READ ALL CONTENT WARNINGS** there's uh a lot of funky shit in this fic. feel free to click out if you think anything in those tags will mess with you - your health matters before anything else!  
>  if you think I've missed anything that should be tagged, **please tell me!** I don't mind
> 
> anyway yeah. have fun lmao.  
> I pretty much had these songs on repeat while writing this if you wanna give them a listen:  
> [Bird](https://youtu.be/roFV6eoG3ao)  
> [Orbital Insanity (2nd version)](https://youtu.be/8ZxoRRzB-bg)  
> [The Breach](https://youtu.be/RCQV7FYlwlE)
> 
> i have a [twitter](https://twitter.com/greenpiggles) too! i mostly complain about fire emblem heroes bc gacha is a bitch but feel free to check it out!

When Prompto opened his eyes, he wasn’t on the cross he’d been strapped to for Astrals knew how long. He was on the floor - _still missing his wristband_ , he thought bitterly, staring at those damned lines and scars on his wrist before twisting it away from sight.

It took him a few seconds to realise he wasn’t alone, but as soon as he saw Ardyn - not Ignis, not Gladio, not Noct, but _finally_ Ardyn himself - and his smiling face, he scrambled onto his feet.

“Oh, so you’ve finally decided to awaken.”

With a yell, Prompto launched himself at Ardyn, hand reaching for his gun—

But nothing came to him. Pain exploded in his cheek, the sting of a backhand throbbing as he slammed the floor. His body _screamed_ in pain, every inch of him sapped of all energy. He couldn’t even make himself move.

Ardyn yanked him by his hair, nails digging deep into his scalp, dragging his head back until he and Ardyn made eye contact. The metallic smell of daemons was suffocating, and there was - a darkness, in Ardyn’s eyes, something that wasn’t human, bubbling and howling to be released.

Prompto made himself keep eye contact. He wouldn’t back down.

“Look at you now,” Ardyn purred. His eyes, tense and pinpoint focused on him, were a complete contrast to the forced lightness in his voice. “Look at what you’ve made me do.”

Prompto, mustering together the last remnants of energy he had, rammed his head into Ardyn’s face.

There was a _crack_ \- Ardyn swore, reeling back and letting go of Prompto. Prompto’s face slammed into the cold, cold steel, but even as he felt blood trickle out of his nose and smear his face, he couldn’t help the nervous thrill that shot through his body, the grin he didn’t try to suppress.

He knew he would die here. He refused to die as a coward.

Barely any of the room was visible to begin with, but Prompto swore that what little he could see darkened in time with Ardyn’s low hiss. He heard boots clomp against steel; his heart rose in his throat, and he shoved it down as fast as it had come.

Just in time - not a second later, Ardyn’s foot kicked the top of his head and _pushed_ , and _Astrals_ , that was - that was definitely gonna give him a bitch of a headache.

“I had considered leaving you alive,” he snarled. “Helpless and begging for rescue from your dear, _dear_ friends, but you’ve more bite than I had anticipated.”

“You—” Prompto’s voice broke on that single word. He hacked and coughed, barely lifting his head from the ground, still grinning stupidly, full of foolhardy confidence. “You really think Iggy and Gladio are gonna come for me?”

Ardyn said nothing, boot still resting on the side of his neck - and it’d be easy, _so so_ easy, for him to press down too hard and just - end Prompto, right there and now.

Prompto continued. He could feel blood staining his teeth, could taste it faintly on the end of his tongue. “Noct barely put up with me as it was, dude. They don’t give a shit about me without him around.”

“You truly believe that, hmm?” Ardyn’s foot lightened, just a smidgen. “The only time you’re confident is when it comes to your own lack of self-confidence. How curious.”

“It’s—” He coughed again, again and again, and could feel himself going light-headed. He needed that numbness, the one that always seemed to sweep in and blanket him in its frost any time bad things happened. Insomnia’s fall? He hadn’t felt a thing. Not for his mothers, for his college friends, not for his neighbours - _nothing_ . Nothing but an emptiness that swallowed him whole. Nothing but a distant thought of _“shouldn’t I be upset?”._

He’d always done that with his emotions; you had to, kind of, when you spent your entire life constantly being rejected and ignored and shunned and ended up faking your entire personality just to make people like some acceptable version of you. All of the negative feelings, he’d always done his best to shove them down, down down down, until he could get alone and let them all spill out at once.

He’d done that so often though that, apparently, he’d stopped being able to get them out at all. No matter how he yanked and teased and told his brain to just _get sad_ already, dammit, no one’s around to hate you, it just… didn’t get the memo.

When Ignis had brought in that newspaper on that fateful morning in Galdin Quay, face drawn tight, eyes heavy, with news of Insomnia’s fall… Prompto’s immediate thought had been _“Definitely not getting money from the parents.”._

If that alone wasn’t proof that he was a terrible person, someone undeserving of friends, of _anything_ … “It’s the truth.”

“Hmm.” Ardyn lifted his foot completely. Prompto’s head rung in the silence. Not for the first time, he stretched out a shaking hand and reached for the Armiger. Not for the first time, nothing came to him. He flexed his fingers around empty air, curling it into a fist that he slammed into the ground.

“Not terribly quick to pick up on things, are you?”

“If I had my gun,” Prompto hissed. “You’d be dead. You’d be more holes than flesh.”

A hum. “I doubt it, somehow, but a touching thought, nonetheless.” Ardyn stood up and turned his back to Prompto, his cloak swishing behind him. If Prompto could only summon his weapon, dammit…

His trembling arms gave out on him the moment he tried to push himself, his body smacking the ground and making his bones rattle. Ardyn didn’t even acknowledge him falling, which was… worse, somehow.

“If I had the time,” Ardyn continued, voice light, as if he was a stranger asking Prompto how he was finding the weather. “Why, I’d make this as much fun for you as possible.” He turned to Prompto with an inhuman glint in his eyes. “Patricide! Multiple times! Tragic backstory! Self-discovery!”

Patricide..? “I don’t…” Prompto coughed. “I don’t have a father.”

Ardyn’s smile widened. It was not at all comforting. “Oh, of course not, my _deepest_ apologies.” He twirled his hat around his finger. “Both of your mothers are as dead as dead can be.”

His heart jumped at that, but just for a second, and that familiar hollowness swallowed him once more.

The hat stopped twirling. “No, my boy, I was talking about your _biological_ father.” Ardyn made a clucking noise with his tongue. “Alas, if Chief Besithia had been allowed to live any longer, he could have become a thorn in my side.” He clapped his hands. “So off went his head!”

Prompto’s own head was swimming. “...I’ve never—” He broke off into a harsh cough. “—I’ve never heard of him. The hell is that?”

“Your father. I just told you that. Tsk, tsk, what a terrible listener you are.”

“ _I don’t_ \- shut _up_.”

“I’d let you roam about and discover for yourself, but your beloved prince is already in the Crystal, so…” Ardyn shrugged. “A shame, truly. I _did_ want you to develop, just a little.”

“What..?”

There was a shrill instant beeping, one that Prompto barely heard over the pounding of blood in his ears and his head ringing. Ardyn made a surprised noise, slinking over to one of the nearby computer monitors.

“And you were convinced they didn’t care, were you?”

For the first time since he’d hit the floor, some semblance of emotion slithered into Prompto’s body; panic, fear, _terror_ , deep, all-consuming, petrifying. “N-no…” he whispered. “They didn’t—”

But he could see it, as clear as day, no matter how far away he was from the screen. On the camera feed showing the Keep’s entrance, there stood Gladio and Ignis.

He wanted to cry. He wanted to yell. And yet, a tiny, traitorous part of his heart was jumping with joy. They _did_ care. They really did.

Ardyn flicked the feed off, grinning. He threw something - two things, actually - in his hands at Prompto’s head; a gun, Prompto realised, and it took him a few seconds to realise that it was _his_ gun. If only he could get his hand to it…

The other thing seemed to be some kind of blade. Slim, red, retractable. What was Ardyn _planning_..?

“You should be able to work out enough about yourself, even if this isn’t the place I had intended,” Ardyn murmured. “Do enjoy yourself - if you can stay alive for that long, of course.”

“ _You_ —”

All around them, the doors slid open in a hiss of gas and noise. Even without being able to see them, Prompto had heard the clamping marches of MTs countless times in his nightmares. There were - dozens of them, their janky footsteps jumbling together into a cacophony of death. His eyes were quick to catch the lack of metal plating around their right wrists, and as soon as he’d noticed that—

Lines. A diamond on either end of a barcode. That was - they had - _he had -_ but—

He wanted to vomit. He almost did. Instead, he grabbed his gun with one hand, the blade with the other, and somehow - _somehow_ \- pushed himself up.

“Do enjoy yourself.” Ardyn bowed. “I had to put in extra work with these MTs. Try not to break them _too_ quickly, hmm?” With a grin as sly as the devil’s, he vanished in a blur of darkness.

“Ardyn! _ARDYN!!”_

The MTs marched closer. Axes dragged along the floor behind them. Many of them had eyes hidden by sniper rifles.

All of them were coming for him.

Prompto could feel his entire body shaking, quivering, like a defective robot _Gods no this was not the time not now_. He shoved his pistol into his jacket, extended the blade in both of his hands, and swung at the nearest MT with a scream that could have pierced diamond.

* * *

Ignis was shaking.

He was trying to hide it, Gladiolus knew, but coming back to this place - to the place where he had nearly died for Noct… it couldn’t have been easy. Astrals knew he wouldn’t have had the courage to do this, and yet… as soon as Ardyn had slipped by at the Caem Cape lighthouse, with a dark smile that could have doused the sun, Prompto’s wristbands and camera dangling from his fingers… if Gladiolus hadn’t been there to hold him back, he was certain that Ignis would have torn down mountains to get to Zegnautus Keep.

Prompto had gone to Hammerhead to help with… something mechanical related. Gladiolus couldn’t even remember now. But once they got him back, Gladiolus wasn’t even going to allow him to go piss by himself. Not for a long, long time.

He and Ignis stood at the Keep’s entrance now, the eerie silence of Gralea their only company. It _shouldn’t_ have been silent, not with all the pinpoints of light scattered through the streets beyond what Gladiolus’ eyes could see. There should have been citizens, millions of them, living out their daily lives. There should have been the distant _swish_ of trains chugging on by on tracks. There should have been wildlife, the flittering of birds over barren trees and populated parks.

But there was nothing. Literal emptiness. It was as if every living organism had been plucked from the landscape, leaving behind a perfect life-size model of what a city _should_ have looked like. It reminded Gladiolus of the model kits his father had had a secret fondness for, and in what little free time he had, he’d often be in the basement, tinkering away at those little sets and laughing whenever Gladiolus and Iris would mess around with them.

He swallowed. Now wasn’t the time for such nostalgia.

“You alright?”

Ignis opened his mouth, as though he wanted to say yes, but nothing came out. He twisted his head away.

“Iggy, c’mon,” Gladiolus murmured, resisting the urge to - he didn’t know. Throttle something. “Be honest with me.”

“No,” Ignis hissed. “No, I am _not_ alright. The memories this place brings back are hardly reminiscent of a vacation.” Then, before Gladiolus could speak, Ignis squared his shoulders and turned to him. “But I will be. We must find Prompto.”

“I know, Iggy. I know.” He sighed. “But there’s no point in pushing yourself.”

“Normally, I would agree, but you have _no idea_ what Ardyn is capable of, quite frankly.” Ignis’ shoulders trembled. “And Prompto has been here for two weeks already. Time is of the essence.”

With a quiet sigh, Gladiolus clasped Ignis on the back of his shoulder, gently stirring him forward. “So tell me what he’s capable of, then.”

Ignis’s head jittered towards him, like an old wooden toy wound up too slow. “...What?”

Gladiolus made sure to keep both of them walking. “What Ardyn can do. Tell me.” He tried for a reassuring smile, well aware of how it probably just exaggerated his unease. “So I’ve got an idea of what we’re going up against.”

For what felt like an eternity, Ignis didn’t answer. Their footsteps clanged in the silence as they entered Zegnautus Keep, the eerie, almost suffocating darkness of Gralea giving way to an emptiness Gladiolus couldn’t describe. It was of a place utterly _devoid_ of people; he could feel it, even having only taken a few steps in. This was no place that any human should have built, not one like this. Hell, not even the Crystal was here now; they’d dragged it out of this hellhole as soon as Aranea and Ravus had brought in enough airships to floor a continent. Gladiolus had thought that this place would have been destroyed, or decommissioned, or - _something_ , but he supposed the two of them had still held a little bit of fondness for their home.

He dragged his fist along a steel wall and felt it rattle against perfect smoothness. The interior was even bleaker than what outside had been, somehow; in the artificial lights shining blood red, Ignis’s face was the very image of exhaustion.

Gladiolus imagined that he didn’t look any better.

But, for Prompto - for _any_ one of his brothers - Gladiolus would go to the Astrals themselves and fight to get them back.

So this? Against one man? No sweat.

Ignis’s hoarse voice almost made him startle, his fist clattering against the wall. “...Ardyn is immortal, I believe,” he begun. He shook his head. “I used the Ring against him, and yet… he still lives. And he _has_ lived, since the reign of the Founder King. He can - transform his appearance, make himself appear to be another.”

Gladiolus whistled. “So, a challenge, then?”

“ _Do not_ take him lightly,” Ignis hissed, his head whipping towards him.

Raising his arms, Gladiolus stepped out of the way of a wonky pillar. “Sorry,” he murmured.

“No, no.” Ignis pinched between his eyebrows, taking a deep breath. “I… I’m overreacting. It’s just—”

“Bad memories, I know.” Gladiolus crossed his arms. “I mean it, Iggy. I can go alone, if you want to lea—”

“I am _not_ leaving!”

“Okay, so not that.”

“We don’t have a _choice_ , Gladio.” Ignis’ footsteps were heavy, slamming against the floor as he got further away from Gladiolus. “We are getting Prompto as soon as possible and leaving here. That is our _only_ course of option.”

Astrals, Ignis could be so _bullheaded_ when he wanted to be… “Okay, okay - just _stay_ with me.” In body _and_ in mind, he didn’t say, but he didn’t need to. “Slow down.”

Ignis turned to him, but then his foot caught on - something, and he stumbled back with a high, muffled noise. Gladiolus _would_ have called it a shriek, but Ignis didn’t - he _didn’t_ shriek. Or scream, or yell, but he was doing all of that, and had slammed himself up against the wall.

Gladiolus didn’t need to think. Hefting his greatsword over his shoulder, he drove the point into the head of the - _thing_.

Sparks flew out with a terrible, terrible gurgle, a noise no human could have ever made, yet a desperate attempt to mimic one. Gladiolus lifted his blade - and stabbed, again and again, until Ignis had stopped shaking and the thing at their feet was no longer doing anything.

Its right hand was outstretched, a final, desperate attempt to reach them. There was almost what appeared to be human skin on the outside of its wrist, and when Gladio peered closer, leaning on his sword’s handle, he could make out a barcode with numbers underneath it, a diamond at each end.

What the _hell_..?

Eventually, he pulled out his sword, panting, trying to hide his own tremors. Lifting a hand to stop Ignis from moving, he crouched down to check it was dead.

And came face-to-face with the torn apart face of—

“Don’t look!” Gladiolus hissed - he didn’t shout, but Astrals, the _blood_ , what the _hell_ —

“Gladio?”

“I said don’t!” He weaved himself in front of Ignis - and he was shaking, they both were, but he couldn’t - he couldn’t let Ignis see - _whatever_ the _fuck_ was lying in front of him, because it couldn’t, it _couldn’t_ have been—

“ _Gladio_ —”

“Just trust me,” he whispered. “ _Please_.” His arms were trembling either side of Ignis’s body, his slick palms almost sliding off the walls.

Ignis immediately shut his eyes and stopped moving.

“I’ll—” _Six_ , he wanted to vomit. He couldn’t close his own eyes, couldn’t see - _that_. “I’ll tell you when you can - open your eyes.”

“Thank you.” Ignis’ words were more breathed than spoken.

Gladiolus couldn’t shut his eyes. He couldn’t. The stench of fresh blood gagged his throat, his nostrils, every inch of his body.

That sight he’d seen - it would haunt his dreams for many, many years.

His rational mind told him that whatever was lying behind them, it couldn’t - _couldn’t_ \- have been Prompto. It’d been a MT not a minute before, its hand grasping at Ignis’s leg.

But yet - when Gladiolus had bent down, he’d seen Prompto’s caved in face, the ripped flesh revealing tissue and blood and other things he should never have had to see. The empty eyes _staring_ at him, the edges red, looking as if he’d been weeping blood. The disconnect of his lower jaw from the upper, the cuts and rips in his face threatening to have the entire head just - collapse upon itself. A corpse barely holding itself together.

It couldn’t have been him - _it couldn’t have been him_ \- but yet...

Gladiolus took a deep breath, then another, and another, and kept going for Astrals knew how long. The - mess wouldn’t clean itself, and he never wanted Ignis to have to see this.

“Keep your eyes shut,” Gladiolus repeated. “Until I say so.”

Ignis nodded again.

But when Gladiolus eventually turned around, ready to vomit, Prompto’s bloody corpse wasn’t what greeted him - it was Ardyn’s sly smirk, hat twirling around his finger, boot resting on top of the MT on the floor. No Prompto in sight.

“What a _delightful_ reaction,” Ardyn purred. Gladiolus watched every muscle in Ignis’s body clench up. His eyes shot open.

“You _bastard_!” Gladiolus snarled. He forced himself not to attack, but it took every muscle he had and the cool touch of Ignis’ fingers on his shoulder. He was next to Gladiolus, dagger gripped in his other hand. “What the _fuck_ was that!?”

“Language, language,” Ardyn tutted. “Wouldn’t want any young viewers to listen to _that_ , would we?” He toed the MT underneath him. “I was merely showing you the truth.”

“Where is he?” Ignis hissed.

“Awfully bold of you to return after what you did to me last time, no?” Ardyn shrugged. There was a blossoming bruise on what appeared to be a fractured nose, judging from the unnatural twist of bone. He didn’t _seem_ to be in any pain, though. “No Ring this time to help you, although it will _delight_ you to hear that I have no intent of harming you.”

Ignis stepped forward, and Gladiolus was sure it was only his fist around Ignis’s wrist that stopped him from launching himself at the man. Ignis yanked his hand out of Gladiolus’s. “ _Where is Prompto!?_ ”

“I wouldn’t know. Meeting his fellow kin, last I saw.”

“How did you..?” Gladiolus couldn’t bring himself to continue, his throat still utterly dry.

“Oh, that?” Ardyn grinned. “Just a little treat of mine. Didn’t like it, hmm?”

“What did you _do_?”

“Ah, ah, ah.” He waggled his finger. “I’d advise less talking and more walking, myself. Prompto’s all alone in an entire facility dedicated to creating MTs - one that’s been overrun with daemons, may I add.” He smiled. “He’s a strong boy, truly, but I think even the Shield would struggle by himself, much less an _innocent civilian_ who’s had very little combat training. Especially weaponless, unlike you two. Aren’t I a gracious host!” Ardyn caught his hat between his fingers, voice dropping. “I wonder _just_ how long he can survive.”

Ignis made a vicious keen of a noise, a sound Gladiolus had never heard come from a human before, and lurched forward, daggers flashing. Tendrils of darkness curled around Ardyn and took the man with him, his deep laughter the only trace of him left behind.

Ignis was trembling, his chest rising and falling even quicker than when he’d suffered from anxiety attacks as a teenager. If it had been anyone else, Gladiolus would have rested a hand on them; _some_ form of contact, something to ground them.

It was Ignis, though, so he held back and waited until his friend no longer looked ready to murder.

“If anything,” Ignis hissed through gritted teeth, “ _if anything happens to_ —”

“Nothing’s gonna happen, Iggy. I promise.” Prompto’s bloody corpse, his ruined bloody face, haunted Gladiolus’s vision yet again. Not for the first time, and certainly not the last. His fingers tightened around his sword’s handle. “Prompto’s a tough kid, yeah? He ain’t gonna just lie there and take whatever Ardyn’s throwing at him.”

“But—”

“You saw Ardyn’s nose, right? Pretty sure Prompto did that.” A surge of pride went through his veins.

“I _know_.” His voice sounded broken, and for an awful second, Gladiolus was thrown back to that moment that they’d found Ignis dying, skin becoming ash, Prompto’s quaking hands on them both as Noct walked into the Crystal, yelling at it for mercy, _haven’t you taken enough from me, from all of us_ —

_Astrals_. They all needed therapy.

“I just…” Ignis didn’t speak for a long time. “ _Ardyn_ , he…”

Gladiolus had never seen Ignis this utterly _terrified_ of another person before. And if _Ignis_ \- their backbone, their rock, _their_ Ignis - was frightened…

“The sooner the better, right?” Gladiolus offered. “Once we get Prompto back, you can cook us the finest meal you’ve ever made. We’ll find the best camping spot in all of Eos, and we can look through Prompto’s photographs. That sound good?”

Ignis made a soft sigh. “That sounds…” His face twisted, and for a fraction of a second, he looked ready to sob. “I would love nothing more.” His eyes darkened. “But, Noct is…”

“Probably having a nice nap in the Crystal, away from all of this bullshit. He’s fine, Iggy. He can handle us having a trip without him.”

Ignis’ lips quirked in a smile devoid of humour. “Noct is the only one of us completely out of danger.”

“Yeah. Kinda messed up, huh?” Gladiolus sighed. “You good to go?”

“Yes.”

Gladiolus took the lead. He didn’t need to look behind, not when he knew Ignis would protect his back, no matter what.

Behind both of them, the chittering of daemons grew louder.

* * *

With a shrieking, ear-splitting cry, the final MT crumbled to the ground, clanking broken limbs against its brothers. Panting, Prompto thrust the tip of his blade into its head - just to be certain - and felt a morbid sense of relief when oil, not blood, oozed out of it.

His arm was bleeding itself, a languish trail of blood dripping onto the floor. Red. Not at all like the MTs.

It stung, yes, but all he could feel was relief. Determinedly ignoring the pale wrists of the fallen enemies, Prompto gripped the blade in both of his hands, gaze darting around.

The room was silent. Then—

“Oh, you really _are_ just like them!” Ardyn’s voice sung over the speaker. Prompto switched his blade to one hand— “ _Heartless_! Devoid of all soul!” With his other hand, he pulled out his gun— “Nothing more than a _monster_ —”

A gunshot echoed in the room. The speaker fizzed and cracked, but made no more noise, shards clattering to the ground. Prompto shoved his gun back into his pocket, and, struggling to keep his breathing under control, took note of his surroundings.

Ardyn’s words rumbled in his thoughts, again and again - _not now_ , he reminded himself _, think on it later. Not now. You gotta keep it together, Prompto._

So, the facts. He was alone. MTs had - had the same barcode he did. He didn’t even _attempt_ to think about that, because he knew he’d never get off _that_ particular train.

_The thoughts that are_ **_relevant_** _, Prompto_ , said a voice in his head that sounded a lot like Ignis. He couldn’t help his little breathy laugh.

He was alone. He couldn’t summon his weapons; all he had was his handgun and a sword. There was MTs here. Daemons too, most likely. Ardyn was here, and seemed pretty intent on not letting Prompto leave alive; or, at least, without being traumatised to hell and back, as if stringing him up on a cross and torturing him with _their_ faces and saying _those_ things for days upon days upon _days_ without end, without barely any food or water or _anything_ , wasn’t—

_Stop it._

Gladio and Ignis were here now. The real ones.

They were here for _him_.

He buckled against the wall, just a little, but soon pulled himself together.

So his priorities went a little like this; meet up with Gladio and Ignis, and get out of here.

He needed food, he knew that much. Any kind of substance. Spending _Astrals_ knew how long tied up on that… whatever the hell that cross thing had been, hadn’t done his body any good. He wanted a nap, more than _anything_ , but he knew he would probably die if he allowed himself to shut his eyes.

Astrals, Noct would be laughing his ass off, if he could see Prompto right now—

He rolled out his joints, forced away his screeching mind, and trampled over the MTs’ bodies to get to the nearest vending machine.

Ebony. It wasn’t _ideal_ , but he still couldn’t access the Armiger, and it was better than nothing, surely.

He slammed his elbow into the glass, once, twice, until it shattered, and then reached in and yanked three cans; one for himself, two for Ignis and Gladio, for when he eventually caught up to them.

When he pulled his elbow back, he was faintly surprised to see blood dripping from it. The MTs hadn’t gotten him there, had they..?

Shards of glass were splintering out of his skin, but it wasn’t even aching. More annoyed than hurt, Prompto pulled them out and let them fall on the floor.

Really, he’d always had a pretty high pain tolerance, so he didn’t think anything of the glass not hurting him. He popped off the lid of one of the Ebony cans and drank it; slowly, so that he wouldn’t make himself vomit. This was quite possibly the _one_ time he could do without that.

“Ah!” He tossed the can towards the nearest bin, grinning to himself when it clanked right into the bottom. “Glad to see basketball in high school paid off!”

His voice sounded rough, like someone had grinded sandpaper all over his throat. Definitely what he _felt_ like, too.

None of the screens had anything useful on them. Not a map, or a radio, that would have been _far_ too useful. Just a bunch of security cameras on locations Prompto had never seen. Atop the controls Ardyn had been at were a box of voice recorders, tied together with string. Prompto shuffled over to them to get a better look.

They’d definitely been placed here on purpose. Underneath them was a thick stack of papers; Prompto shimmied out the piece on top from below the stack of recorders and shook it out. It crinkled, the only noise in the room.

_'Termination Report’_

“Great start,” he muttered, then glanced down to skim over the rest of the words.

_‘M.E. 755-VII-25th_

_ATTN: Research Chief Verstael Besithia_

_The following specimens have been eradicated:’_

From there, it was a long string of numbers that bore more than a passing resemblance to the one on his wrist. Underneath _that_ was:

_‘All 23 samples listed have been incinerated to avoid potential daemonification of personnel.’_

And, of course, to put the cherry on top of the cake, there were images clipped to the page of naked people in test tubes that looked _just_ like him.

Prompto couldn’t help his hysterical laugh, covering his face with his hand and shaking his head.

It wasn’t difficult to connect the dots, really. ‘Potential daemonification’ meant that these… clones, he guessed? They were turned into daemons.

MTs were powered by daemons. The MTs that he’d fought earlier had the same barcode he had, and given that Prompto looked _just_ like these test tube babies, they probably had the same code as well.

So, the Empire had been mass producing clones to daemonify for their MT army.

And Prompto was one of them.

_Legendary_.

Prompto had always known he wasn’t entirely human - his mothers had made sure of that - but he had always thought that was just… he didn't know, them really not liking Niffs. Seeing them as barely being people.

But for him to be a _clone_?

Since Ardyn had called this… Besithia person his father, did that mean that the clones were reproduced from him?

Prompto blew out a heavy sigh.

Ardyn had left all of this here on purpose, _absolutely_ , but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t useful. Sighing to himself, and shoving down every last inch of his festering feelings until that blissful numbness returned, Prompto picked up the pages, the voice recorders, and shoved them into his pockets.

“Sure Iggy’d appreciate this,” he mumbled, trying to ignore the slight shake of his hands.

He didn’t turn on the recordings, instead taking a minute to just - breathe. He wasn’t sure. His thoughts were swimming that much that his entire head was only a constant buzz, too exhausted to actually _think_ of anything. His body ached so badly that it no longer hurt. Absentmindedly, he prodded at a bloody bruise on his bicep, digging his finger in deep, but all he felt was a slight sting.

That was a problem, right? To barely feel anything? Maybe it was. He couldn't muster up energy to care.

Astrals, he wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep more than anything.

Swallowing, he turned for the nearest door and pulled on the handle.

It was, of course, locked, because nothing ever went right for him.

Next to the door was a keypad. It didn’t take a genius to work out what he had to do next.

But as soon as he touched the pad, it lit up - _and so did his barcode, what the hell_.

He yanked his hand back—

_“Scanning production code.”_

_Are you fucking kidding me_ , he wanted to scream.

The next words came out louder; much louder: _“Unit 05953234 confirmed.”_

Astrals, how many humans had the Empire _made_ . He was almost the six _millionth_ , what the hell.

The doors slid open. Prompto made to sigh with relief—

_“Warning.”_

And promptly stopped.

_“This unit has been compromised. Initialising retrieval of compromised unit.”_

He didn’t dare wait around. “Good luck with that!” he called, grinning a fool’s grin as he dashed into the open corridor—

And right into Ignis.

* * *

They’d been walking for a while, speaking not a word, their footsteps the only sound for miles on end, when there was a crackling noise above them. Ignis jumped on instinct, gripping his daggers, preparing for Ardyn to come from - he didn’t know, somewhere, _anywhere_.

But there was no Ardyn. Instead, a feminine voice droned over the speakers:

_“Unit 05953234 confirmed._ ”

“Huh?” Gladio frowned. “The hell is that? Some kind of MT code?”

“Most likely.” It wasn’t as if the Empire would number their daemons. The MTs, perhaps, but it still made little sense, especially when Ignis tried to think of _why_ such information would be coming over the speakers now of all times. There were only four living people within Zegnautus Keep; himself, Gladio, Prompto, and Ardyn.

Ignis grit his teeth.

_“Warning.”_

Gladio’s frown deepened. They both stared at the nearest speaker overhead.

_“This unit has been compromised. Initialising retrieval of compromised unit.”_

The speakers snapped off. Gladio whistled.

“MT’s gone rogue?”

“From the sounds of it.” Ignis scowled, mind whirling.

“Didn’t know they could—” Gladio waved a hand listlessly. “Y’know, _do_ things independently. Aren’t they all just robots?”

“Indeed.”

Gladio turned to face him. “You’re, uh, not exactly helpin’ me out here, Iggy. What do you think?”

Blood hot fury spiked in his veins. Ignis forced his fists to uncurl, mouth feeling as if there was steel wool shoved into it, all mushy and sharp and unable to _speak._ “I think,” he eventually spat out, well aware of how poorly he was keeping himself together right now, and not really bringing himself to care. Gladio had already seen him almost _die_. “That, truthfully, I don’t particularly care. We came here for _Prompto_. Why should I care about a MT that decided to start thinking for itself?”

“Okay, that’s…” Gladio sighed. “That’s fair.”

“Once we get Prompto back, I will _gladly_ think upon all of these matters. But for now…”

“Yeah, I hear ya.” Gladio rested his hands on his hips, glancing away. “The sooner the better. Let’s move.”

They fell into silence once more, Gladio taking the lead, Ignis a couple of steps behind him. This place was as every bit a maze as Ignis remembered it, every corridor seeming to splinter off into three more, none of them labelled and all of them leading to places that he doubted even the Astrals knew of.

“...Wait.”

“Hmm?”

“That—” For less than a second, Gladio shuddered. “That MT that attacked you. On its right wrist, it had a barcode? And some digits. I just remembered that now.” Gladio cupped his chin with his hand. “So it definitely was a rogue MT over the announcement back there. I wonder what it’s up to.”

“I’m not.” Ignis slinked ahead of him. He heard Gladio sigh behind him, and then stride forward to again take the lead.

When they came to a small open area, with crates and MT corpses speckled around, Gladio sank onto a crate, hands gripping his hair. He had laid his sword against the wall; Ignis did the same with his daggers, but when he stood upright, Gladio was still silent.

“...Gladio?”

“What do we do,” he whispered, “if we can’t find the real Prompto?”

Ignis’s heart felt as though ice had encased it.

“...What?”

Gladio ran his hands through his hair, again and again.

“If we.” He stopped, started again, scowling. “ _If we_ —” He shook his head, lowering it, hands still holding tight to his hair. He looked a mess, to put it kindly. The spluttering, dim light overhead darkened his shadows and highlighted his bruises, his scowl lines, every inch of his exhausted face.

Ignis didn’t dare consider what he himself looked like. Gladio wasn’t the one who had almost embraced death just a few weeks past.

“Ardyn makes illusions,” Gladio said. It wasn’t a question. But when had he—

Oh, _Astrals_.

Gladio glanced up at Ignis’s small pained noise. Back then, with the MT, when Gladio had _begged_ him to keep his eyes shut… surely, _surely_ , Ardyn hadn’t—

“Don’t ask,” Gladio whispered. “ _Please_.”

“Gladio—”

" _Don’t_.”

Ignis shut his mouth. Gladio’s four words had spoken a thousand. He rested his hand over his mouth, trying to surpass the overwhelming urge to gag. His fingers trembled.

Did Ardyn’s cruelness know _no_ bounds?

He snapped his hand back to his side, curling it into a fist. Gladio raised his eyebrows, but continued speaking.

“Ardyn makes illusions,” he repeated. “He could… I don’t know, Iggy. He could do _anything_. What’s to stop him from pretending to be Prompto, and we just - waltz out of here with him and leave the real one to die?”

“We won’t.”

“ _Iggy_ —”

“We won’t!”

Gladio stood up. “Iggy, I need you to calm down—”

“ _I am calm!_ ”

Gladio exhaled, deeply, holding his hands up. “Iggy, listen to me.”

“I will _listen_ once you stop spouting nonsense!”

“I’m not—” Gladio pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let’s both sit down, yeah?”

He hadn’t even been aware that he was standing, but now it was all too apparent; the heat in his veins, two seconds away from morphing into anxiety that would cripple him utterly. He squeezed his shaking hands tighter and sat down on a crate next to Gladio, waiting for him to continue.

Gods, he felt naked without his glasses, but they hadn't had time to get a new pair, and he didn't _really_ need them. But this exposure, his fingers meeting nothing when he went to slide them up… it was unsettling.

Gladio continued, but not at all with the words Ignis expected:

“Can I… touch you?”

Ignis blinked. “Yes?”

Not a second later, Gladio’s hands, unshakable, calloused, rested over Ignis’s rattling fists.

“Untense a little,” he whispered. “You’re gonna hurt yourself, Iggy. Try and follow my breathing.”

“I’m—” Only no more words would come out of his throat, and his heart - Six, it was pounding far too fast, but they couldn’t afford to waste time, Prompto was out there, _alone, battling MTs_ and _daemons_ and who knew what else, and Ardyn - _Ardyn_ , that bastard, he would—

“Ignis,” Gladio’s panicked voice cut him out of his thoughts. “Ignis, _please_. You need to breathe.”

“I _can’t_ —”

“Follow my breathing, okay? Look at how deeply I’m doing it.” Gladio rested Ignis’s hand on his chest, and all Ignis could feel in that second was how his chest rose and fall, steady and true.

He knew that he was having an anxiety attack, but Astrals, _Astrals_ , it’d been - it’d been _years_ since his last one, and why now, _why now when they couldn’t afford to but he was_ **_dying_ ** _he was fine he was fine no he wasn’t_ **_he didn’t want to die again_** —

He shoved all thoughts aside, like he was forcing himself through the thickest of quicksands, and focused only on matching his breathing to Gladio’s own.

It took what felt like an eternity, but eventually, Ignis was able to wheeze a breath out of his raw, aching throat. And then another, and another, until he felt somewhat human again.

His eyes felt sore. He ran a hand over his cheeks and wasn’t surprised to find trails of salty tears; he scrubbed until he was certain all traces were gone, trying to ignore how red his cheeks must have looked. Sheer _humiliation_ choked his throat.

“I’m - I’m sorry,” he hiccuped, not able to bring himself to look up. He didn’t see Gladio sigh beside him, but the noise rumbled through both of the crates they were on.

“You don’t need to apologise,” came the deep murmur. “Really nothin’ to be sorry for.”

“It’s just - all of this, it’s—”

“Iggy, I’m amazed you’re still here.” Gladio was staring straight ahead, hands wringed together. “If I was you, I would have - I would have made like a chocobo and ran as far away from here as I could and never look back.”

“Prompto’s here.” It really was as simple as that.

“Even _if_ Prompto was here, I doubt I could do it.” Another sigh. “Noct, maybe, but only because that’s my _duty_. It’s - I’m selfish, I know, but I don’t - I don’t think I could do it, if it was Prompto here, and if I were in your shoes. If I’d been through what you have.”

Ignis allowed himself a wry smile. “I - I think, perhaps, you ought to give yourself a little bit more credit.”

Gladio smiled in return. “Maybe.”

“I…” Ignis sighed. “I still must apologise. I shouldn’t - we don’t have time to be wasting on me… reacting like that.”

Another sigh, then some shuffling. Gladio locked his hands between his spread legs, turning to Ignis. “Look, Iggy. Tell me. If it was, I dunno, Prompto having an anxiety attack - we know he gets pretty bad ones - would you be telling him that he’s wasting our time?”

His head snapped up so fast it gave him whiplash. “Of course I wouldn’t—” He snorted, unable to help his grin as he glanced away. “Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing.”

Gladio’s deep chuckle echoed in the air. It was the first time Ignis had heard that noise for quite some time. “Well, it’s what you always tell us, right? It’s just that all of this stuff’s got you a bit frazzled.”

“Only a bit, now.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He clapped his hands on his thighs. “How you feeling now? Good to go?”

“Indeed.”

“You sure?”

Ignis flashed him a smile. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Anytime.” Gladio stretched out his arms, grabbing his sword from where he had left it leaning against the wall. He picked up Ignis’ daggers and handed them to him.

There was faint scratching, and a smell in the air that Ignis could only describe as damp blood. Not a second later, goblins and bombs and all sorts of terrible daemons came shrieking from the corridor they had been in before.

Gladio’s grip tightened. “We’ll take ‘em, then—”

“No,” Ignis said, poised to sprint. “We run. Prompto is our priority, and Astrals only knows how many daemons there could be. We could be here for hours.”

The monsters crept closer.

“Good point.” Gladio hefted his sword over his shoulder. “Alright then, run!”

They both turned and broke away from the swarm of daemons.

* * *

Once upon a time, Prompto’s first reaction to seeing one of his closest friends after weeks of isolation and torture would have been to sprint and hug them. Maybe cry a little, because he’d always been prone to tears, despite all his attempts to curb that habit. After all, people didn’t like someone who started sniffling if they accidentally looked at you funny because you couldn’t stop _overthinking_.

Now, though, Prompto’s first reaction was to stop in his tracks and curse Ardyn in his head.

Ignis was by himself. He didn’t have a weapon, and hadn’t yet noticed Prompto, his back turned to him. All three of those things were strange; honestly, Ardyn was getting sloppy with these illusions.

And yet, _and yet_ , a traitorous part of Prompto couldn’t help but trill with delight. To yell _‘it’s him it’s Ignis!’_ even though he was positive it was yet another of Ardyn’s tricks.

Every time, _every time_ , it hit him like a sucker punch in the guts. It left him winded and feeling boneless and a thousand other sensations.

He inhaled. Clapped his hands together, and forced a smile onto his face.

“Didn’t know this place was a popular vacation spot,” Prompto started, and continued even as Ignis turned to regard him with steely eyes. “Not a whole lot to see, honestly. Unless you wanna see tons of daemons and MTs?” He shrugged, not taking his eyes off the other man. “I know you like history, Iggy, but this is kinda taking it to the extreme.”

“Are you _done_?” came Ignis’s chipped voice, accented, cool. He had his arms folded over his chest, the glint of his glasses hiding his eyes.

It wasn’t the real Ignis. Prompto knew that, he _knew_ that, but he was so tired of this. Just once, _just once_ , he wanted to be able to believe.

But he knew that for a long, long time, he wouldn’t be able to.

Prompto dropped his hands. His right hand ghosted over the pistol shoved in his pocket. With his other hand, he reached for the Armiger with a twitch of his fingers - and still felt nothing. “Just, y’know, sayin’ hi. Since I’ve been missing for a while and all. You got a headache from that Ebony withdrawal?”

“Only from your _nattering_.”

“Yeah, yeah. So where’s the big guy?”

Silence.

With a heavy sigh, Prompto pulled out his gun. Ignis’ eyes widened, and a shadow of doubt whispered into Prompto’s heart.

“Prompto..?”

“Shut _up,_ Ardyn,” he hissed.

“What are you—” Ignis frowned. “Prompto, what nonsense are you pulling?” He let out a soft noise. “Is… what Ardyn said true?”

Prompto kept his gun straight and his gaze true. “...Depends on what he said.”

“He said you were a MT. Or meant to be one, at least.” His eyes glanced to Prompto’s right wrist, the area of skin around his barcode paler than the rest of his arm. “Those bracelets…” He looked back up at Prompto, and the _look_ in his eyes; quiet disappointment, regret… surely Ardyn couldn’t have made those up. _Surely_.

Prompto lowered his gun. Just a little.

“...And you never thought to _tell_ us?” Ignis continued, voice incredulous. “You _truly_ believed you could wear some trinkets around your wrist for the rest of your life and hide something of that magnitude from us?”

“I-I mean, it… it worked for twenty years already—”

“Don’t be absurd, Prompto.” Ignis scoffed. “Astrals, and you wonder why none of us want you around. You’re pathetic.”

“ _What_?”

Ignis regarded him with eyes like ice. “Do you really believe we came here for _you_?”

Prompto’s heart dropped.

“Well, uh.” He shrugged with a nervous laugh. “Don't really see why else you'd come back here.”

“Gladio and I came here to tie up loose ends.” Ignis crossed his arms, his fingers tightening into fists. “After discovering you’re a MT—”

“I’m not!”

“Do you _truly_ believe we’d save someone like you?” Ignis snorted. “You lied to us, Prompto. You can rot here and die for all I care.”

“I-Ignis…”

“Don’t think I’ve forgiven you for what happened in Altissia, either.” Ignis took a step forward; Prompto scrambled two back. The rational part of his mind, the tiny fragment of that that remained, was screaming _‘it’s not him it’s not him shoot him shoot him!’._

But - well. The rest of his brain had thrown itself out of the top floor window of a skyscraper, whispering thoughts he always kept under chain and lock to himself, never ever to repeat to another: _‘you deserve this you know he’s right just go and_ **_die_ ** _already no one cares for you did you really think they actually cared_ ’.

It was getting hard to breathe.

“You left me to die, Prompto. You did nothing to save me, and yet, _you’re_ the one who doesn’t trust _me_.”

“I did _everything I could_ —”

“You're lying, Prompto.”

“Shut up! You’re not him shut up shut up _shut up_!”

Ignis continued walking. Prompto’s back slammed the wall, and he barely felt the dull thud of pain over the rattling that’d taken over his entire body. “Perhaps it would be best if I did the deed myself,” Ignis was saying. “So that Noct never has to discover what his supposed best friend really was.”

“Where’s Gladio!?” Prompto shrieked. Ignis stopped at that, and Prompto launched at the opening. “Y-you came together, right? So _where is he_!?”

“None of your concern.”

“ _Tell me!_ ”

“I’ve had quite enough of listening to a MT’s prattle,” Ignis hissed - and then, in a flash of an eye, he had an elbow to Prompto’s throat, choking him against the wall.

Prompto didn’t dare look at his eyes. With a dying squeak of a yell, he dropped his pistol and fumbled about blindly for something - _anything_.

Flailing fingers wrapped around a handle. Prompto thrust forward—

And Ignis stumbled backwards with a terrible, awful noise Prompto would hear in many nightmares to come. His knees smacked the ground. Prompto caught himself on trembling hands, and then looked up—

If he had had any words left, he would have screamed. As it was, he stared, mouth ajar, rapid, heaving breaths audible.

Blood frothed from Ignis’s mouth, ashen fingers weakly grasped around the sword embedded in his chest. His mouth flapped open and close like a broken wooden doll, and his eyes - _his eyes_ \- were staring at Prompto with an emotion he’d never seen from Ignis before. His shirt darkened around the stab wound, the material turning damp. The air was prominent with the horrible scent of iron; Prompto could taste it on his mouth.

Oh _Astrals_ , went the part of his brain that wasn’t screaming. It was a very small part, but it was still a part that remained detached from all emotion, detached from watching one of his closest friends dying because of him. Surely - _surely_ Ardyn’s illusions couldn’t extend this far, Prompto had just - _Prompto had just_ —

“ _You_ ,” Ignis snarled with teeth stained bloody red. He looked worse than the last time he almost died, somehow _\- the last time he almost died_. Prompto let out a horrible giggle at the thought.

Ignis tried to step forward. He fell. Prompto squeezed his eyes shut at the sickening squelch of metal ramming through flesh.

There was silence, for a long, dreadful moment. It hung in the air like sorrow at a funeral.

Prompto had his hands over his eyes and had curled up on himself. He didn’t remember doing so. He could block out all sight, but he couldn’t block out noise, couldn’t ignore the _drip drip_ of blood splattering the floor. He couldn’t block out touch, couldn’t ignore his ice cold fingers clutching his face, the phantom pain of his friend’s arm at his neck. He couldn’t block out smell, the suffocating staleness of a place without life, the tang of daemonic iron that was always there, always lurking.

His body went numb. He welcomed it.

When he came back to himself, his wrist had been torn bloody, scabs of skin under the nails of his left hand. It ached, but so did every part of his body. His cuts pulsed. His eyes stung. It would have been more difficult to find a part of him, physical or mental, that wasn’t dying, if not impossible.

He didn’t take his gaze off the wall. He didn’t dare look down. He couldn’t.

Eventually, he stood, and it was as if he was staring at himself from afar. Watching himself stand, not looking at Ignis’s body, and walking past it around the nearest corner.

As soon as he was out of sight from the body, he doubled over and dry heaved. A hand clutched at his stomach; the other, the wall, because he doubted he could currently stand on his own two feet.

_I want to die_ , his mind said, monotone, and as soon as he’d thought that - well.

It wasn’t the first time. Noct hadn’t been the only one of them to struggle with depression. But he’d thought - he’d thought he’d _gotten_ past all of this.

But that thought kept whispering, and then it kept chanting, and he couldn’t think of anything else.

So he stood there, listless, until he heard footsteps clomping on the ground—

“ _I_ _ggy!_ ” roared Gladio’s voice.

Inside him, something a lot like hope snapped.

Prompto just - gave up. He offered no reaction when Gladio turned the corner. He offered no resistance when Gladio yanked his wrist with a wordless roar.

“What did you _do_ to him!?” He shook Prompto’s unresponsive body. “ _Prompto!”_

Then something else snapped. Whatever it was made rage boil in his veins and laughter pour from his throat.

“ _Me!?”_ he laughed. “Really, Ardyn. _Really_!?” He shoved Gladio’s hands off his shoulders. “ _Don’t touch me._ ”

Gladio stood back, eyes narrowing. “The hell’s wrong with you? What happened to _Ignis?_ Why is he—”

“Ardyn happened! For everything! Who the fuck do you _think_ it was!?”

With a wild shriek, Prompto rushed forward. Gladio side-stepped him with ease. A hand wrapped around his right wrist and slammed him into the wall. As Prompto turned, snarling, Gladiolus’s other hand tightened around Prompto’s throat and raised him off his feet.

_This is how I die_ , Prompto thought, hysterical, _because Ardyn’s got a choking fetish._

“You did that to Ignis, didn’t you!?”

When Prompto didn’t answer, because he was kind of unable to talk, Gladio’s voice grew into a roar. “I _knew_ we couldn’t trust you! Couldn’t trust a _MT_!”

Prompto opened his mouth, but no words came out. No words _could_ come out, even if he could speak. His hand caught on the gun still tucked in his pocket.

“Got nothin’ at all to say, huh!?”

Prompto’s eyes slid over to where Ignis’s corpse had been—

Only, there was nothing there. No corpse, no blood, no ashen skin.

_Nothing_.

All that remained was the sword Prompto had used, lying on the floor, its blade untainted.

The edges of his vision turned fuzzy. With a snarl, Gladio released his grip, stomping back as Prompto fell to the floor, hacking and wheezing for breath. His fingers tightened around his gun.

“ _All these years_ , you were one of _them_ ,” Gladio spat. “You played the clown all along when you were the snake—”

“You know, _Ardyn_ ,” Prompto snapped. The barrel of his gun pointed between Gladio’s widening eyes. “This trick’s getting real old.”

A gunshot echoed.

The MT clattered to the ground.

Seconds later, so too did his gun, soon followed by his body. Prompto fell onto his knees. He locked his hands behind his head and ducked down and screamed.

Only when his throat could no longer make sound did he stop. He tilted his head back and slammed his fists into the ground.

“Anything else you want to throw at me!?” he yelled at the ceiling. Ardyn was listening, somewhere, somehow, because fuck knew he was _everywhere_. “C’mon, you bastard, give me your worst!”

The MT lying nearby remained silent.

Body quivering, Prompto dragged his fists along the floor and forced himself to his feet, stumbling as he stood. He _needed_ to rest, so so badly, but he couldn’t. He _couldn’t_.

Not until he found Gladio and Ignis. If they were even here. Maybe Ardyn had been making up images on that security feed, just to mess with him, to watch him lose his fucking _mind because if anything else happened he would and_ —

No. No. He couldn’t go down that route. They had to be here. The alternative just - he’d die.

And he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t hurt the others like that.

So he dragged himself onto his feet and walked, one step after the other. Again and again and again, with so many thoughts brimming in his mind that it all faded into a haze of nothingness. It didn’t feel real. _None_ of this felt real. He went through elevators and up and down spiraling staircases, through cramped rooms and tight corridors, sniping down any daemons that attempted to spook him. It was like he’d left his body and a completely different person had stepped into his skin.

No MTs at least. A small mercy.

It could have been minutes, or hours, or days, before he found a wide open area. A hangar, judging from all of the containers at the sides of the room. There were abandoned trucks and forklifts scattered around. None of them were rusted, so they must have been used until recently. A large door spanned the end of the room.

What mattered, though, was that it was empty and blissfully quiet. Prompto sank down onto the floor, hands resting on his crossed legs. He didn’t know how long he sat there for.

It was an eternity before silence broke.

Distant footsteps, frantic. More than one pair. Prompto stumbled to his feet, almost dropping his gun as he reached for it.

He stood in that open area, struggling to breathe, as two familiar shadows raced towards him.

“ _Prompto_!” he heard Ignis’s voice yell.

Prompto gasped, barely hearing Gladio shouting over the trample of Ignis’s boots.

They were - it was Ignis, _and_ Gladio, both of them, _together_ \- but Ardyn, he didn’t, he could, Prompto didn’t—

He raised his gun.

“Don’t!” he screamed. “D-don’t come any closer!”

* * *

It had been a good idea to run from the daemons instead of fighting them, because the worst one Gladiolus had ever seen was waiting for them in a control room.

“Ah _shit_ ,” he’d hissed as soon as the doors had slid open, but that alone was enough to catch the thing’s attention. It was - _hideous_ , wings and spikes protruding from its body. It looked _almost_ human, and that was the worst part, perhaps. Its skin faded from pink to black to pink again, like the world’s biggest bruise, gleaming sickly in the artificial lights of the Keep.

The doors slid shut behind them. Not for the first time, Gladiolus sent prayers to six gods he had long since stopped believing in.

The daemon’s eyes stalked over them, then locked onto Ignis.

“The _riiiiing_!” It hurled itself forward. Gladiolus ducked under its wing and shoved his blade up into empty air. “The _Crystal!!_ It is miiiine! Begone retainers of the Light! _BegONEEEEEEEE!!”_

“Didn’t know daemons could talk,” Gladiolus growled.

“You learn something new every day,” Ignis hissed back. He clapped his hands together; fire roared underneath the daemon’s body. It swooped out of the way, hurtling onto the ceiling before crashing down onto Ignis.

“ _Iggy_!”

“I’m fine!” Ignis had - somehow - managed to cartwheel out of the way. He flinged a dagger at the daemon’s wing, then brought up a wall of ice just as the daemon lunged at him again. “It seems to have taken an—” He grunted, ducking as the daemon’s wing shot forward. “—Taken quite an interest in myself!”

“You’re a good looking guy.”

“And I have _no_ interest in any kind of romantic matters! Take this _seriously_ , Gladiolus!”

“You have tooUCHED THE _RING_!!” the daemon screamed. Just for a second, Ignis froze, eyes widening—

The daemon rammed into him. With a cry, Ignis slammed against a monitor.

“IGNIS!”

“I’m fine! Focus on _taking it out_!”

“GIVE ME YOUR POOOOOOWER! _GIVE ME THE RIIIIING_!!” The daemon didn’t even flinch when Gladiolus cleanly ripped off one of its wings with his blade. Goo crawled down his fingers and caught in the cracks in his skin; Gladiolus hissed and leapt forward, readying a Dawnhammer.

“Sorry to break this up!”

When his blade slammed into the daemon’s back, finally - _finally_ , it turned on him. The Shield. The person _meant_ to be taking blows for everyone else.

“The empiiiiire,” the daemon groaned, “will span _all the lands!_ ”

It dove forward at mach speed; only Gladiolus’s faster reaction with his shield kept his head from being sliced clean off. Grunting, he braced himself against the daemon’s arm.

Thunder crackled and hissed behind the daemon. With a wild cry, Ignis dove forward, diving both of his daggers into the daemon’s back. Gladiolus jumped back as the daemon spasmed and twitched, electricity sparking from its body. He swore he saw smoke as the daemon threw its head back and howled, but it was _still_ standing.

“We neeD THE CRYSTAL!!”

“Sorry, but we’ve already taken it!” Gladiolus twisted himself in the air and came crashing down with his blade. The daemon came down with him, and finally, _finally_ , it stopped moving.

“Niflheiiiiim,” it croaked, “shall _bloom_ in its lightttttttttttt…”

Then, it finally died, orbs of darkness and daemonic energy floating from its body. Soon, there was nothing left.

Panting, Gladiolus sent his shield back to the Armiger and rested a hand on the nearest control panel. “This place,” he breathed, “is like something out of a horror movie. The _fuck_ was that daemon?”

“I don’t know,” Ignis murmured. He was bent over a control panel, hissing gingerly and prodding at his back. Gladiolus walked towards him, summoning a potion to his hand from the Armiger.

“Hey, you need a potion?”

Ignis shook his head. “It’s only a mild twinge.”

“Yeah, and Ifrit knows how many more of those daemons we’ll encounter.” Growling, Gladiolus shoved the potion into Ignis’s surprised hands. “Just take it, Iggy. We need to be in top shape. You didn’t break any bones, right?”

“No.”

“Then shut up and _drink_ it.”

“Noct isn’t here to replenish them.”

“Do I look like I give a shit? Take it or I’ll shove it down you. Your choice.”

“I…” Ignis shut his mouth, glancing away. The sound of glass cracking echoed in the air; then, Ignis made a soft sigh of relief as blue waves of magic surrounded him. “...Thank you,” he muttered, not looking at Gladiolus.

“You’re welcome.” He peered over what Ignis was looking at, trying and failing to understand what any of the buttons meant. Prompto was the technological whizz out of them all; Gladiolus knew the bare basics, but he’d never had time to dedicate himself to more. Sprawled out in front of them were rows upon rows of security monitors, none of them with any feed. “Whatcha doin’?”

Ignis clicked a button, clucking his tongue when nothing happened. “ _Trying_ to get the security footage online.” He pressed another button. “See if that might give us an idea of where Prompto may be.”

“If I remember correctly, the hangar isn’t too far ahead. And the Crystal was just beyond that…”

“...Where I had been,” Ignis finished softly. For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut, hands resting on the panels. “...It’s best not to dwell on those memories for now.” He went back to pressing buttons.

“Iggy…”

“We’ve been through much of this place already, I’m certain. Prompto must be _somewhere_ close by.” As he said that, one of the monitors came to life; they both looked up, and Gladiolus felt himself sag with disappointment.

He didn’t recognise the room the camera was pointing at. A throne of some sorts, with clothing abandoned on it..?

“That appears to be the emperor’s throne,” Ignis said. “The clothing _is_ strange, though.”

“You think the emperor just went ‘ _fuck it’_ and stripped off all his clothes?”

An amused smile twitched at Ignis’s lips. “I wish that were the case.” The smile dropped. “But no, I doubt it.” He sighed. “That doesn’t matter for now. We must find Prompto.”

“Not to jinx things horribly, but at least Ardyn seems to have stopped bothering us.”

Ignis’s hand rested over his left eye. “I suspect Ardyn doesn’t wish for any of us to actually _die_.” The skin of Ignis’ fingers stretched tight over the edge of the control panel with how tightly he was gripping it. “He’s probably watching us all struggle like ants and having the time of his life.”

“ _Doesn’t_ want us to die?”

“Just wants to traumatise everyone that Noct cares for. Horribly.”

“Okay, I can get that - but _why_?”

“He wishes to make Noct fight him, more than anything else. Killing us… would just _break_ His Highness.”

Gladiolus thought on that for several seconds. “...He hasn’t targeted me.” _Yet._

“Then you should consider yourself fortunate.”

“Ignis—”

Another feed came on. An empty area Gladiolus recognised as the hangar, but _more importantly_ —

There was a - figure, sat in the middle of the room. It made no movement, no signs of being alive, and the relief in Gladiolus’s heart twisted to terror in less than a second.

“That’s-!”

“ _Prompto_!” Ignis drew away from the panel and headed for the door. The doors they had come in from remained shut, and Gladiolus could hear daemons wailing and clattering. “We need to hurry! Do you know the way from here!?”

“Y-yeah, kinda.” Gladiolus nodded. “We need to find an elevator. Let’s go.”

They weaved through what appeared to be a power generator room, but Ignis left Gladiolus no time to slow down, sprinting through the halls with a haste Gladiolus struggled to keep up with.

“Iggy, slow down! We don’t know what’s around the corner—”

“We know where Prompto is,” he hissed. “And Gods help me, _if anything happens to him_ —”

This wasn’t the time for arguments. Gladiolus kept his mouth shut, nodded, and took the lead once more.

Gladiolus had never seen Ignis so impatient in an elevator before. As soon as the doors slid open even a fraction, he was out; he stopped himself just before the steps and turned to wait for Gladiolus to jog up to him.

As soon as they ascended to the top of the steps, Gladiolus saw it. That familiar tuft of blond hair. The gun in his hands. The Crownsguard uniform with all those patches Gladiolus had been certain shouldn’t have been allowed.

It was him. It was _their_ Prompto.

He could cry.

But then, Prompto’s caved in face, his eyes weeping blood—

“ _Prompto_!” Ignis yelled, already sprinting.

“Iggy, wait!” Gladiolus cried, stretching his hand out - and missing Ignis’s wrist. “Ardyn’s illusions-!”

But the wide, bruised eyes that turned to greet them, the bitten fingernails clenched around his gun’s handle so tightly that it turned his fingers white, the slight shaking that he didn’t seem to notice or be able to stop…

Astrals, if this person standing in front of them wasn’t Prompto, Gladiolus was going to scream.

Prompto’s first reaction wasn’t to run towards them; not at all. He raised his gun, arms trembling so violently that there was no way he could aim accurately.

“Don’t!” His voice broke. “D-don’t come any closer!”

Ignis stopped, hands dropping to his sides, eyes wide. Gladiolus had never noticed how - expressive they were, until he was stripped of his glasses. Maybe that was a part of the reason why he wore them, outside of wanting perfect vision. It wouldn’t have surprised him. Nothing would have had, at this point.

“Prompto..?”

Prompto’s eyes were darting between both of them; Ignis, standing there, at an utter loss with what to do, and Gladiolus, drawing closer to him, never taking his eyes off of Prompto. His arms steadied, just a little, and he visibly swallowed.

“...Tell me something,” he whispered. “Something that—” He seemed to choke on his own words. Gladiolus had seen Prompto afraid a lot of times, but never as truly _petrified_ as now.

Six, what the _fuck_ had Ardyn done to him? To Ignis? To both of them?

“Tell me something that only you guys would know!” he finished, voice hitching with desperation. “Something that only the real Ignis and Gladio would know!” Head dropping, his next words came out as a sob: “ _Please_! I can’t - I can’t _take_ this anymore!”

It clicked in Gladiolus’s brain, and he’d never felt such anger as the fire that _roared_ through his veins in that second. He swore - oh, he _promised_ \- to rip Ardyn from limb to limb, to make him bleed, again and again and _again_ , until he knew but a fraction of the pain he had put Ignis and Prompto and Noct and Luna and _the entire fucking world_ through.

Right now, though, anger had no place here.

“Remember that time,” Gladiolus started. He felt two pairs of eyes snap onto him, and _Astrals_ , he was fumbling his way through this, but one of them had to do _something_. “Where Iggy tried to make you really spicy food for your nineteenth birthday? But he ended up making it way too spicy and he started crying from it, but he kept insisting that it was _from the onions he had cut_.” He snorted. “As if onions go in curry!”

“Onions are _perfectly_ fine in a curry—”

Prompto lowered his gun. Just a fraction, but he was staring at them with the widest eyes Gladiolus had ever seen him with. He looked like a baby garula near death, silently begging for some kind, for _any_ kind of mercy.

But it could bite back, stronger than what anyone could imagine. Gladiolus knew this about Prompto better than most.

Wordlessly, Prompto’s gaze slid to Ignis.

He coughed. “You… ah.”

_C’mon, Iggy,_ Gladiolus pled in his mind, _don’t fuck this up. We’ve only got one shot._

“I could tell you,” Ignis began, “about what an incredible person you are, Prompto. About your strengths you never recognise, about your achievements you always brush aside, about your battles you never show to us…” He inhaled and drew himself up straight. “But I doubt that will convince you that _we_ are the true Ignis and Gladio.”

The possibility that the person standing in front of them was Ardyn had long since dissipated. Gladiolus knew, in his hearts of hearts, that it was Prompto in front of them. He just _knew_.

“So,” Ignis said, “I will instead ask you to trust us, Prompto. Trust us as much as we trust you.”

Ignis extended his arms and stretched his palms, holding them outwards. The daggers in them disappeared in a glister of blue light. His eyes slid shut, head tilted back, neck exposed.

Gladiolus was speechless. Ignis’s breath did not falter. His eyes did not even attempt to peak open. This, next to him, was a man with unshakable faith.

Prompto’s gun was at his side now, and his _face_ \- it was an emotion Gladiolus had never seen on him before. He couldn’t understand what made his eyebrows furrow and his eyes somehow widen simultaneously, what made his jaw hang slack, but it constricted Gladiolus’s heart and threatened to suffocate.

He knew what he had to do.

Gladiolus held his greatsword in front of him and willed it away to the Armiger. It vanished with a bright gleam. He, too, shut his eyes and let his arms hang at his sides, defenceless, trusting in his brother. All he could hear was the pounding of his heart, blood rushing in his ears, his body screaming at him for fighting against every single instinct it held to protect, to _fight_ , to be on guard.

For an eternity, there was silence.

Then, a clatter, and a wail; Prompto sprinting towards the two of them, gun abandoned on the floor. Gladiolus and Ignis crouched together, just in time to wrap their arms around Prompto’s own. They all fell to the floor.

“You’re real,” Prompto whispered, arms iron tight around them, strong enough to make Gladiolus’s body ache. His entire body shook. “You’re real you’re real _you’re real_ —”

“We’re here,” Ignis murmured, his voice near tears.

“We’re not leavin’ you, Prompto,” Gladiolus continued, and he could hear the raspiness in his own voice, the sheer utter _relief_ that drowned out all other sensation in his body. Tears brimmed in his eyes. “We’re sorry. I’m sorry.”

What kind of Shield couldn’t protect his own brothers? First Ignis, then Noct, and now Prompto...

Prompto said nothing. Gladiolus’s chest was wet.

Held together by quavering arms, the three of them knew only silence and love.

* * *

“I’ve contacted Aranea,” Ignis murmured, walking back towards them. At once, his hand rested on Prompto’s shoulder, gripping tight. “She was waiting on stand-by and said she’ll be here as quickly as possible. We should meet her at the entrance.”

“Shit, that’s ages away.” Gladio’s gaze darted over all of them. “And I don’t think any of us are up for making the return trek.”

Ignis gritted his teeth. “At least we’ve been left alone.” Prompto flinched under his hand.

“Yeah.” Gladio snorted. “Small mercies.”

“Hey, uh, Iggy,” Prompto whispered, his voice so hoarse that Ignis strained to hear it, even in the silence.

“Yes?”

“Can you, uh…” He shifted, and, somehow, his voice went even meeker. “Can you let go? Sorry.”

At once, Ignis withdrew his hand, unable to hide the stab of pain in his heart. Prompto hugged himself, left hand resting over his wrist, right hand on his heart. He took a couple of steps back, gaze boring into the ground. He seemed unwilling or, perhaps, unable to speak any further, so Ignis turned his gaze to Gladio.

He was scrutinising Prompto, careful not to touch him, hands on his hips as his eyes roamed over the other’s body. Eventually, he turned to Ignis. “Should we give him a potion?”

As much as it pained him to do so, Ignis shook his head. “If he has any broken bones, absolutely not. And many of those injuries…”

Gladio scowled. “Don’t look new. Potion’s not gonna have an effect on them. I _know_ , but…”

“Attempting to force the healing of broken bones does more harm than good. You _know_ this, Gladio. We all do.”

“Yeah, well, excuse me for forgetting stuff when I’m looking at one of my closest friends who’s been _tortured_ for - Astrals knows how long.”

“Uh, guys,” came Prompto’s quiet voice. “I _can_ hear you.”

They both stopped. There was an unfamiliar tightness in Prompto’s face, a hardness in his eyes. _Don’t ask me what happened_ , he was saying, even as every instinct in Ignis’s body screamed to know every answer, to know every hurt, so he would know best how to help, to _heal_.

But it was impossible to help someone who did not wish for it.

So, instead, Ignis forced all of that away, forced himself to ignore his aching heart.

“Have you had food?” he asked. “Water?”

“This is _Ardyn_ , man, you think he gave me any of that?” Prompto’s smile was almost a sneer. Then, he gasped, and for that second, his face resembled the Prompto Ignis loved and missed so very much. “Oh, wait! Wait!” He dove his hands into his pockets, twisting away from them, tongue sticking out. “I got something…”

That was when Ignis’ eyes caught on the tattoo on Prompto’s right wrist. He twisted his neck, attempting discreetly to get a closer look.

It was coated with drying blood, fresh scratches on the skin. Underneath the blood, the wrist was scarred over with countless criss-crosses, and _Astrals_ , how Ignis’s heart ached at the implications of that. But even all of that wasn’t enough to hide what laid below.

A barcode. Two diamonds. A number stamped underneath.

In that moment, he felt his entire body freeze. His chest tightened, not out of fear, but out of empathy; all he could think of was how Prompto had always worn bracelets over his right wrist. What it must have been like, spending his entire life hiding that mark while growing up in Insomnia.

Insomnia was not kind to foreigners. Ignis had had plenty of first-hand experience.

When he glanced up, Gladio was looking at him, with a look in his eyes that said _‘later_ ’.

Ignis nodded.

“Here we go!” There was a clanking of cans; Prompto held two of them in his hands, grinning. Ignis didn’t miss the careful twist of his right wrist, how he kept the front of his hand away from their gaze.

_Oh, Prompto_ , Ignis thought, with a tinge of pity he would never admit to feeling _, do you really think that matters to us?_

“This is…” he couldn’t help his grin. “ _Ebony_?”

“Yep! Here ya go.”

Ignis cradled it at once with a murmur of ‘ _thank you’_ , and he felt as if he could weep. Just _seeing_ such a small comfort…

Prompto turned to Gladio. “You want one too, big guy?”

Gladio snorted but took the can. “Not a chance. Iggy’s already taken all the world’s supply of it.”

“Hush, now.” Ignis dug his fingernail underneath the rim. It popped open, and as it fizzed around his fingers, that familiar sweet scent wafted to him. It’d been _so long_ since he’d smelt anything but salt water and rusted steel and daemons. His chest lightened. “It is a delightful drink.”

Gladio pulled his face. “More ‘honey’ than drink if you ask me, but whatever works for you.” Still, he was smiling, fingers resting easy on top of the can.

Ignis downed it in one and sent the empty can to the Armiger. “Prompto, no amount of words will ever be enough to express my gratitude to you.”

“Just say thank you like a _normal_ person,” Gladio grumbled.

Prompto was giggling, busy tying a strap of cloth he’d torn from his jacket around his right wrist. “Just glad you like it!”

Ignis shared another look with Gladio and nodded.

“Is your wrist alright?”

Startling, Prompto flashed them a wide grin a second later. “Yeah, all good! Just got a bit scraped up, that’s all.”

“ _Every_ part of you’s scraped up,” Gladio muttered. The can in his hand vanished in a flash of blue light.

Another laugh. “Yeah, true enough.” He paused for a long while, his grin softening into something genuine. “...If it doesn’t get better, I’ll show you guys.” He held up his right fist. If it was trembling, well… that was to be expected. “Deal?”

Gladio bumped it with his own. “ _Deal_.”

“What, do I not get a fist bump?”

“I, uh—” Prompto laughed. “You never really struck me as the fist bumping kinda guy, Iggy. You’re more arm bumping.”

“You forgetting all the peace signs he gives whenever you take pics?”

“Nonsense. Hold it out.”

Prompto did so with a confused little squeak of a noise. Ignis twisted his hand and bumped it against his friend’s, smiling.

“There we go.”

“ _Oooooohhhh_.” Prompto gave a devilish grin. “Not gonna lie, big guy, he gives _way_ better ones than you do.”

“Oh, does he now?” Gladio lifted his arm and made to give a nuggle, but seemed to find himself at the last second, and instead, awkwardly lowered his arm again. It was painful to watch. “We’ll just have to practice, huh?”

“Yeah!”

“ _For_ _now_ ,” Ignis said, “shall we go? I, for one, would rather go blind than look at this place a second longer.”

Prompto gave them a smile. It was a small and delicate little thing, barely noticeable under the bruises and cuts and dried blood peppered over his skin, but it was _there_ , and Ignis would take that as a small victory. “Y-yeah,” he murmured, “let’s - let’s go. To home sweet home.”

Gladio looped his arm over Prompto’s shoulder, smiling back. Ignis’s arm rested atop of his; a few seconds later, both of Prompto’s stretched over theirs.

Together, with home in their arms, they made their way to the eternal night.


End file.
